Various surgical procedures require the surgeon to access the thoracic region of a patient. A known procedure to access the thoracic region is to cut the sternum in two parts and separate these two parts from each other. After completion of the surgical procedure, the separated parts of the sternum are brought back to their initial position and fixed, for example, with a bone plate attached to the sternum parts or a wire tensioned around the circumference of the sternum.
EP 0 597 259 A2 discloses a wound closure element to be looped around a human sternum. The wound closure element comprises a strap which is inserted through and retained by a tightening plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,460,295 B2 discloses a sternum repair device including a central body and plurality of bands extending from the central body. The bands may wrap around the sternum to keep the separate sternum parts together. The central body includes a view window which is used by a surgeon to line up the device during installation on the sternum.
WO 2010/042946 A1 discloses cerclage system including a cable that encircles the sternum parts and a bone plate having channels to receive segments of the cable. The bone plate further includes a pair of locking studs to lock the cable within the channels to the bone plate.
EP 0 608 592 B1 discloses an assembly for banding a sternum. The assembly comprises an elongated flexible band, a needle at one end of the band and a buckle proximate the other end of the band. A main section of the band includes a plurality of spaced slots which can engage at a locking mechanism.
After a surgical procedure such as, for example, a bypass operation has been carried out on a patient and the sternum has been closed using any of the known fixation assemblies, the patient is normally kept under surveillance. If it is detected that the surgical procedure has failed in any manner, it may be desirable for the surgeon to again open the sternum closure. The time required for this sternum opening procedure may be critical for the patient's health and even life. Moreover, a cable or wire tensioned around the sternum parts (so-called “primary closure”) might come loose or brake due to the load applied to the thoracic region of the patient. In such a case, the fixation has to be stabilized by, for example, a bone plate (so-called “secondary closure”).